


Parallels of Life

by Pxteicy



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: A+ Parenting, Alternate Universe, Anxiety Disorder, Bullying, Cute Kids, Depression, F/F, F/M, Family Issues, Han Jisung | Han & Kim Seungmin are Best Friends, Hyunjin needs love, I mean it, Kim Seungmin & Yang Jeongin | I.N are Best Friends, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Yang Jeongin & Han Jisung are best friends, everybody will love Minho, gay issues, more ship tags will be added as I go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 03:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17880059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pxteicy/pseuds/Pxteicy
Summary: Hwang Hyunjin is lost and needs guidance.Yang Jeongin has been there already.Let’s see how fate plays it out.-Where one broken kid might just casually find the pieces he’s missing in hands of another broken one.Updates whenever I manage to get my shit together.





	1. Parallels of Life

It is dark and even a little cold. The stars are sadly not visible due to the lamps of the street, but he isn’t complaining. 

Jeongin walks with both hands inside the pocket of his hoodie, looking at the shadows projected by the light, his being the main one. It probably would be considered as something boring to other people, but at least for him, it is relaxing. There‘s really no hidden meaning to it, he just likes the peace and quiet of walking through the streets of his neighborhood in the middle of the night.

If you ask him when he started to do this, he wouldn’t be able to answer. Maybe around the time he was in 8th grade, but no assurance of that. Jeongin‘s always been a little bit of an oddball, developing interests in things and activities that people often overlook. He’d come to terms with it, that‘s just who he is and, not going to lie, he likes it. He enjoys that slightly eccentric side of himself. 

His phone vibrates, the sudden interruption of his thoughts’ line throwing him off for a few seconds; he’d been startled. 

_I bet my gay to Jeongin being awake_  
-Jisungie 

He reads the notification from the group chat even before unlocking his phone, a smile forming on his lips as soon as he does. 

_I’m here too._  
-Minnie 

_how can u know im awake?_

_i know everything ___  
-Jisungie

Jeongin snorted a quiet laugh. 

_no, you don't_

_I said I do, so I do_  
_What r u doing? Walking again?_  
-Jisungie 

_yeah_

_Be careful, and make sure your father doesn’t find out._  
-Minnie 

Jeongin knows. It won’t be good for him if his father notices he’d gone out in the middle of the night... alone. Not that it was a good idea to do so, but honestly speaking, the neighborhood they lived in was probably the safest place in like twenty miles square. His father would dare to disagree with him about this, but Jeongin knows he can walk at any time he pleases without being in danger of getting kidnapped or robbed. 

_dont worry_  
_he’s working tonight_

_well_  
_just be careful_  
-Jisungie 

_Please._  
-Minnie 

_ofc_  
_but why r u guys awake?_

_I’m reading this novel and I won’t sleep until I finish it._  
-Minnie

_watching anime_  
like always  
-Jisungie

_of course you are_

He blocks his phone’s screen while rolling his eyes and hides his hands in the pocket once again. His thoughts drift towards his friends and how grateful he is for them. Jisung and Seungmin are always there for him. They are, with no space for doubt, the biggest support he’s had in the past four years. 

The thought of his friends makes him automatically think about school, which makes him remember that one math test he has to take next Monday. That means studying for hours while having failure assured. He sighs, unlike Seungmin, he’s not the brightest person out there, but he tries. At least he can say that he holds better grades than Jisung, although that shouldn’t be considered an achievement to be proud of. 

When a car rides through the deserted street, it sends a chill breeze in his direction that makes him shiver and look in its way. The car turns around the corner he is just about to reach and goes out of his vision range. He knows that by the time he himself reached the corner the car would be gone, but if he is right, the person that came in it would still be heading towards his house. 

How many times had he gone to walk on a Saturday or Friday night and witnessed the same scene? He’s aware that he should not care, but... well, he does, just a little. 

Once he’s turned right and finds himself walking towards his own house, knowing it’s been almost an hour of walking around, he sees him. He stands in the sidewalk parallel to his own, both hands inside of his jeans’ pockets and looking up at the moon. He doesn’t even seem to be drunk, but he might be. The breeze shakes his hair just a little, just enough. He’s in a place where no lamp’s light reaches him and his skin sparkles under the moonlight. That Prince Charming aura just feels so odd on him for some reason. But Jeongin can’t deny it, Hwang Hyunjin is handsome. 

And no, Yang Jeongin does not like him or anything related. It’s just— he can’t help it but wonder about him. Not that he doesn’t have his reasons to do it. 

Jeongin continues walking towards his own house, not sure if Hyunjin had noticed him. Probably not. He sees him turn around and walk towards the door of his house. His pace is sluggish but steady, he really doesn’t look like he is drunk in the slightest. But what can Jeongin possibly know? He’s never been to a party or gotten drunk before. 

Hyunjin disappears behind his door before Jeongin has the chance of getting to his own house. Unlike the Hwang’s house, Jeongin’s family lives in an apartment. The building is right in front of Hyunjin’s house. Jeongin pushes the main door open and takes the elevator to his floor, once there, he opens his apartment’s door. He manages to do it silently, walking inside after taking off his shoes, grateful that socks muffle the sound of his footsteps. He walks straight to his room and sighs relieved when he finally closes the door behind him. 

* * *

The door opens with ease when he slides the key into it. The click sound it produces is way louder than it would normally be due to the silence of the night and he can just pray that the noise will not wake up his mother. He’s not worried about getting in trouble, his mother has no right to call him out on anything. The problem is that he is not in the mood to have a discussion with his mother at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night. Or should he say Sunday morning? Whatever, technicalities.

All the lights are off except for that one lamp that’s placed next to the couch in the living room. It’s always been like that, that one lamp is left on during nights because his mother doesn’t trust the house being completely dark. He personally doesn’t mind it at all. It makes it easier for him to come home late and not worry about bumping against every single object in his way to his room. Although honestly, they don’t have that many things lying around their living room. 

It makes sense, it is only the two of them in the house. His mother is working every day and Hyunjin himself is either at school or just somewhere else that isn’t home. 

He makes his way towards his bedroom and cautiously eyes his mother’s room. The door is closed and there’s no light coming from under it, which means she’s sleeping or, who knows, maybe not even there at all. Good, Hyunjin thinks. He lost track of his mother’s activities a long time ago, they don’t concern him. 

The house isn’t really big so he gets to his room in a matter of seconds, opens the door and walks inside, locking it behind him. He unbuttons his shirt with practiced ease and throws it right into the laundry basket, soon after doing the same with his jeans and socks. 

He is tired. 

There’s this little thing he hates with dearness about going out: Hyunjin rarely gets drunk. He’s been partying for a long time and his alcohol resistance is pretty high. But even if it wasn’t, Hyunjin doesn’t like being drunk. He just feels more like shit than he normally does when it happens. The problem is that being sober throughout a whole party is exhausting, at least the times he manages to knock himself blank he doesn’t have to worry about anything at all. 

He falls to his bed and buries his face in his pillow with a heavy sigh. His feet dangle off the border of the bed so he drags them up a little bit just by mere instinct. He can’t remember how long it’s been since his bed become too small for him to fit in, but probably pretty long. The funny thing is that he’s tall, but he is not that tall. The bed is just too small. 

A dim ray of moonlight enters his room through the window and Hyunjin pulls the curtain to cover it. He likes the soft light of the moon, but he knows he’ll want to sleep until nearly 3 p.m. —at least —and the sun will become a nightmare if he leaves the curtain open. 

He can hear his phone buzzing on top of the nightstand, but he couldn’t care less about social media when it’s so late and all he wants to do is sleep and maybe, not wake up ever again. 

* * *

It’s sad, but he wakes up hours after. The sun is out but it doesn’t look as bright as it if was morning, and he can confirm that it isn’t when he looks at the little digital clock that rests upon the table to his right. It’s 4 p.m., which means his mother is out for work and probably not going to be home until 8 p.m. or later.

Hyunjin leaves his bed and walks to the bathroom slow paced. He rubs his eyes and without looking at anything else enters the shower. When he lets the water out, it comes cold and snaps him out of his soporific state. He looks at the faucet, thinking he might have turned it to the cold side by accident, but no; the knob is pointing at the red mark. He sighs, that means the gas bill hasn’t been paid, again. 

He showers under the cold water reluctantly, not taking any more time than strictly necessary. Once out, he wraps a towel around his hair and goes for a pair of pajamas. Luckily, he doesn’t have anything to do at all that day. Any and every homework was done on Saturday morning, so Hyunjin has no concerns. He drags himself to the kitchen and picks the cereal box from the cabinet; with a little shake, he verifies that it still has some left. To his dismay, however, the milk is expired. He pours what’s left of it in the sink and the cartoon box goes to the bin. 

He doesn’t dwell on it for too long, he moves onto the living room and plops himself on the couch. He doesn’t care much about tv shows these days, but he turns it on regardless. Anything capable of distracting his mind is well received. There’s a movie that seems at least a little interesting and he lets it play while eating the cereal dry. It isn’t as bad as many people would consider it. 

The hours run out and before Hyunjin realizes it, he can hear the door being opened. As soon as he does, he leaves the living room, knowing his mother has arrived. His phone is still charging on top of his nightstand, totally unnecessary at this point. He unplugs it, finding a collision of notifications from different social media and other apps. For a few seconds, he considers not checking any of it and just going straight into YouTube to watch some stupids videos, but ends up deciding that it wouldn’t be a good idea. 

There are many messages from some random KakaoTalk group chat to which he’s been added. He ignores them. Then there are a few messages of Minho from last night, asking where he was. Those probably were from before he found him and brought him home. There are a few totally random messages from Felix, but they make no sense, so Hyunjin ignores those too. He checks his other notifications, like Instagram. He suspects he’s been tagged into every single one of the videos from last night’s party. He avoids checking them, though. There’s no need for him to watch them when he knows exactly what last night was like. 

He scrolls through Instagram a little more until he gets tired, nothing worth watching there either. He goes back to that group chat he was added to and reads a few of the messages. They were talking about the party and sending photos of it. It was like everybody, everywhere, was talking about it. Which was pretty much what happened every single time he went to a party, and Hyunjin went to parties almost weekly. He’s in some of those photos, and a few people in the group chat make comments on his looks; there are others who are a little bit more... explicit about what they say, but Hyunjin does what he’s been doing all day: ignore them. He’s no stupid enough to ignite the fire. 

He ends up dropping his phone back to the nightstand and staring at his ceiling. A few luminous stars are attached to it, they’ve been there for years but they still manage to shine brightly with the absorbed light of the day. After staring at them for while, Hyunjin falls asleep once again with stars in the back of his mind. 

* * *

Jeongin wakes up that morning with a few knocks on his door. That is followed by somebody opening said door and walking to his bed. Jeongin can tell who it is just by the sound of the footsteps, but he won’t bummer the kid’s entertainment by letting him know he’s already awake.

The tiny and quick steps come to a stop next to him and Jeongin almost has to bite his lip to stop a smile from taking over his face. The next thing he feels is the tiny person crawling up his bed and sitting on top of him. Two small hands hold both sides of his face and press, pushing his lips upward. 

“Innie,” the cute voice drags his name, “Wake up.” 

And that was all that took for him to smile wide and open his eyes. The little boy in front of him is frowning, but as soon as he sees that Jeongin is awake, he smiles too. The child leans forward and lies on him, embracing him with his short arms as much as he can. Jeongin hugs him back and when the kid says good morning, he bites back the urge of not speaking right after waking up to reply. 

“Good morning, little Shin.” 

His mother pokes her head through the crack of the door and smiles when she sees them. 

“Since you’re awake, come out for breakfast,” she says.

“Going,” Jeongin replies to her with a little bit of a choked voice as his little brother hops on his stomach spluttering excitedly about food. His mother laughs quietly and abandons the room while he struggles to get Shin off of him. 

However, little Shin follows him to the bathroom and watches Jeongin as he brushes his teeth and so on. When he’s ready to go for breakfast, he takes the kid on his arms and they go to the kitchen where his mother has left two plates on the breakfast bar. Jeongin leaves Shin on the chair next to his. He’s already four years old, so there’s no worry of him falling off the chair. He just has to make sure the chair is close enough to the bar. 

“Miss Choi will be coming to check on us next week, although I have no idea when,” is the first thing his mother tells him once she sits across from him at the bar. 

Jeongin nods but refrains from saying anything as his mouth is currently full of toast and egg. He glances at Jeongshin, who is eating the same thing but seems totally caught up in the action. 

“He’s grown so much.” 

“Yes, I like to think that we’re doing a good job,” her eyes are fixed on Shin as she speaks and Jeongin can nothing but understand the feeling. 

“You are,” he says, giving her a small smile that he hopes conveys the reassurance he feels. “We are.” 

Jeongin plays with Shin for half an hour before his mother sends him off to do his homework, which Jeongin had been purposely trying to avoid by distracting himself with his younger brother. But duty calls. 

And by duty, we’re referring to asking Seungmim to help him study math through a video-call because Jeongin would like to try and not fail for once. The rest of his afternoon is spent in homework, studying and occasionally taking breaks —that can extend to hour-long breaks, but that’s totally off point —while doing so. By the time night comes, Jeongin is tired and bed calls him with open arms to the realm of sleep.


	2. A light head and a little bit of drama

It’s almost annoying how Hyunjin never, ever, finds himself alone when he’s at school. There’s always somebody who is there wherever he goes. Generally, one of those people is Minho or Felix, which Hyunjin doesn’t mind, they are the closest he has to friends. But then... you have other people, those who only stick around because they know that being near Hwang Hyunjin brings attention. However, he lets them be, they won’t be there long enough for him to add them to his list of concerns. 

He doesn’t even arrive at school alone since Minho always picks him up. It’s not like the trip from Hyunjin’s house to the school is long, he could go walking, but Minho has made it clear that it is not an option for as long as he had a car. 

Hyunjin hasn’t even managed to properly enter the school’s building when he is tackled by Felix and other people.  
A few go straight to Minho and talk to him about something related to the soccer team and Hyunjin ignores them as he couldn’t care less. He himself has to deal with two guys who approach him and attempt to make small talk with him. 

Hyunjin isn’t in the friendliest mood. 

“...the practices,” one of them is talking, but Hyunjin is so distracted that he isn’t able to catch half of the sentence. It’s only the inquisition in the face of the guy talking that tells him he’s waiting for Hyunjin to comment on what he just said. 

“Uh— wait, what did you say? I couldn’t catch it,” he ends up saying when he realizes that starting at the guy’s face will not tell him the answer. 

“I said that we should be starting swimming practices soon since winter is already over.” 

“I heard Chan say that we might start next week,” the other guy says. “Since he’s the captain I’m guessing he’s right.” 

“That’s good, yes,” Hyunjin answers. The truth is he feels slightly dizzy and his concentration is put entirely in not letting it show rather than the conversation. He looks around trying to find a way to escape and is lucky when the bell announcing ten minutes left for the start of classes goes off. 

Being honest, he doesn’t hold any grudges against the swimmers, they are part of his team. But something about having to deal with other human beings isn’t his priority at the moment and there’s a high percentage of possibility that something is the sole action. 

“I need to go to my class, see you around, guys,” he says with a feigned smile as he grabs Felix’s arm and drags him to the opposite hallway. Minho sees him leaving and waves a hand at him, which Hyunjin replies by doing the same. 

Since Minho is a year ahead of Hyunjin and Felix, his class is in a different part of the building so he stays behind while Hyunjin drags Felix around. 

“What was that for?” Felix asks. 

“If I leave you behind, you will straight up skip class,” he lies. He walks with his hands inside his pockets and looks at the blue sky through the corridor’s windows; there isn’t a single cloud in sight. 

Felix furrows his eyebrows but doesn’t comment on it. He rather changes the topic and it becomes Hyunjin’s time to look at him confusedly. 

“What do you mean you want to join the basketball team? Do you even like basketball?” 

“Not really...” 

“Then why?” 

“It makes you popular with girls,” he replies with a shrug and if Hyunjin didn’t care as little as he does, he would facepalm himself. 

“You know what? Whatever. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

Felix smiles at him with that mischievous look on his eyes and Hyunjin can only pray for those souls in the basketball team. 

After they get to their class and it starts, it all goes by incredibly slow. Hyunjin suspects it has a lot to do with the fact that the dizziness he felt hasn’t gone anywhere. On the contrary, Hyunjin could swear it has become bigger and pushier.

* * *

When the second period of class hits, Hyunjin doesn’t only feel dizzy, his head has started to hurt too.

* * *

Jeongin is certain that at least half of his teachers hate him. Maybe not hate, but at least they feel some kind of animosity towards him. He isn’t a bad student per se, nor is he disrespectful in any way. But there’s no way that his teachers won’t feel annoyed when Jeongin asks for permission to leave for the bathroom in every single one of their classes. 

He saw the look of ‘Here we go again’ on Mr. Kim’s face as soon he approached him in the middle of the class. However, perks of having medically diagnosed anxiety include that of his teachers’ inability to deny him that request. 

Which is about every perk it includes. 

Jeongin shakes the thought off and splashes water on his face. The only reason he asks for permission to go to the bathroom so often is that the walk to and from it makes his restlessness more bearable. 

Jeongin is midway drying his face with a paper towel when something bangs against what he can only assume is one of the cubicle’s door and he jumps. Literally, jumps and screeches. His heartbeat goes up by unmeasurable speed and for a few seconds he needs to remind himself that he’s not in danger —he hopes so —and that presumably somebody’s hurt in the bathroom and nobody other than himself can help them. 

He breathes in and out a few times, lets out a deep breath and then walks to the only door that is closed. 

“Hey?” Jeongin tries calling up, but the response is mere silence. “Are you okay?” He tries again but gets the same results. 

His hands move nervously on his side and he tries to stop them by hanging his fingers on the belt loops. He looks around trying to think of what to do, but the little grey tiles that are plastered all through the bathroom’s walls aren’t helping. 

That’s until he looks at the following door, which is open, and Jeongin feels the sudden urge of facepalming right there and then. He walks into the cubicle and looks at the toilet, feeling bad for what he’s about to do next. 

Jeongin places one foot on the border of the toilet, taking a deep inhale before pushing forward to stand on top of it.  
He takes a second to steady himself and proceeds to peer to the cubicle to the right, his hands grasping at the border of the fake wall for safety. 

He isn’t used to cursing, but he surely forgets that when a ‘Fuck’ is whispered out of his lips. 

In front of his eyes lies Hwang Hyunjin. And he says lies because he’s literally on the floor, half of his body pushed against the door and there’s a light red mark on his forehead. 

He’s also seemingly unconscious. 

“Oh, my god,” he whispers, voice faltering.  
Jeongin looks back and forth, not knowing if he’s glad nobody has yet come into the bathroom or worried for the exact same reason. 

He looks back to the cubicle in front of him. The door is locked from the inside and he needs to get Hyunjin out of there, regardless of anything, Jeongin might not be in danger, but Hyunjin could. 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he says again, a panicky edge on his voice. 

One deep inhale before stepping on the flusher, a second deep inhale before pushing upwards to the border of the wall, and several breathing seconds to tranquilize himself when he’s safely sitting up there. Jeongin nods to himself, simply trying to convince his troubled mind that everything’s fine and he won’t die trying to get down from there. 

He slides slowly, his right foot touching the border of the toilet carefully in search for a place to step in. Once his foot is placed firmly in the ceramic, he pushes downwards and then to the floor. 

Jeongin doubts anybody could understand how big of a relief that was for him. 

The cube is small and two people inside make it feel cramped, even more so when one of them is laying strangely on the floor. Jeongin kneels down in front of Hyunjin and his first action is to check if he’s breathing. Which takes away an immense amount of weight off his shoulders when he can confirm he is. He sits Hyunjin against the fake wall instead of the door and opens it, giving both of them more space. 

His hands are shaking a lot more than what he’d like. He feels sick, light headed and an uncomfortable tickling all over his body. Jeongin knows what it is, but he needs to keep the wave of overwhelming feelings at bay if he wants to help the other guy. He lays Hyunjin on the floor, cautions not to hit his head with the hard ground, and raises his legs a bit— he always knew those CPR courses would be beneficial at some point in his life—. 

After he’s done this, all Jeongin can do is wait. If Hyunjin doesn’t start to wake up in a minute, he’s going to panic before being able to run and call for help. He looks at the guy’s chest go up and down rhythmically and he starts to count his breaths, unconsciously helping his own nerves to settle. 

When he’s at breath 16th Hyunjin groans and Jeongin can barely keep himself from jumping scared. 

He moves closer and sees him trying to open his eyes; he’s struggling, something Jeongin can tell just by looking. Once his eyes are fully open, the confusion on his face is noticeable, but he’s alive and conscious and that’s all Jeongin cares about at the moment. 

“Where am I?” he asks, voice so low Jeongin can barely hear him. 

“In the bathroom, you fainted.” 

“Oh, god.” 

_You have no idea, Hwang Hyunjin._

“Do you think you can walk? I need to take you to the infirmary.” Jeongin cuts straight to the point, he needs to get this over with soon. 

Hyunjin doesn’t answer him for a while and Jeongin starts thinking that he might be dying for real and he will be blamed for it if they find him with Hyunjin’s dead body in front of him. But then Hyunjin says, “My legs might as well be weights right now,” and Jeongin stops himself from sighing nervously in the last second, “But I think I can make it.” 

Jeongin nods and helps him stand on his feet, an arm draped over his shoulder to help him walk. It was a laborious job to drag the towering guy around as he was probably near five inches taller than him, but he could manage. However, the silence between them grows uncomfortable as the seconds pass and they get closer to the infirmary. 

“I—“ he tries to break the ice a little, but his voice dies down without a pre-made sentence to say. “Do you... know what happened to you...?” Jeongin asks cautiously, he doesn’t know how to bring it up so he just goes for what seems more logical. 

“I was feeling dizzy, then a headache took over me, then everything is black.” 

“You don’t remember coming to the bathroom?” 

Hyunjin shakes his head slowly as a negation. Jeongin knows that fainting can cause partial memory loss. There’s no reason to be concerned about that, but Jeongin is no doctor to discard any possibilities. He also knows he is probably just overthinking the situation; it’s not uncommon for students to faint in the institutions for whatever reason. 

As he feels the silence falling between the two of them, Jeongin can only be grateful that the door of the infirmary is only a few meters away from him. He knows his luck won’t last him for a lot longer and he desperately wants to leave Hyunjin in the hands of a professional and disappear back to his class. 

“Oh!” Exclaims the nurse once the two guys come through the door. He was sitting in front of the computer, probably doing his own work, but he got up in a swift move. “What happened?” 

The nurse leads them further into the room, signaling a bed for Jeongin to leave Hyunjin on. He gives the nurse a brief explanation of the bathroom situation and what Hyunjin had mentioned to him before and Mr. Park—the nurse, Jeongin feels strange calling him mister in sight of how young he is —nods and makes a few noncommittal sounds while searching for a something around the room. 

“Can— Can I leave now?” Jeongin asks sheepishly, not sure if the busy man is actually paying attention to him at all. 

“You can,” he replies, “Do you need a pass?” 

“I— yes, please.” 

Jeongin stays at a reasonable distance from the bed Hyunjin lies on, wishing he could merge into the wall and go unnoticed. Luckily for him, the light green curtains that separate each bed in the room maintains him out of sight for Hyunjin. But even if the curtains weren’t there, Jeongin doubts Hyunjin would pay any mind to him. 

After the nurse’s done checking Hyunjin heartbeat, he walks back to his desk and Jeongin follows him. He takes a small piece of paper and writes the time and his signature on it. 

“Name and classroom,” he asks. 

“Yang Jeongin, class 2-3.” 

Mr. Park leans down again and scribbles Jeongin’s name in the paper quickly before handing it to him. “Thanks for helping him,” he says with a smile and goes back to Hyunjin. 

Jeongin, out of habit, bows slightly to Mr. Park’s back and leaves the infirmary, feeling relief flood him as soon as he’s three steps away from the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw some people leaving kudos on this already and I can't even start to describe how happy that made me. Please also feel free to suggest anything and advice me, I'm here to learn.


End file.
